


The Burden of Incantation-Fetter’s Arms

by Halja



Series: Hveralund - Storie dalla Grotta [3]
Category: Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Apocalypse Planning, F/M, Imprisonment, Magic, Non-Graphic Violence, Off-screen torture, Thoughts of revenge, Violent Thoughts, mentions of child death, mythologically or otherwise, this doesn't make sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7428673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halja/pseuds/Halja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sigyn and Loki break free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Burden of Incantation-Fetter’s Arms

 

 

 

 

Sigyn is as much of a prisoner as Loki is.

She may leave, sure, if she so desired – she could crawl back upwards towards the light and the fresh air and the Sun and the rain. But, she doesn’t desire it. As long as Loki is bound, _she_ is bound, too. It cannot be any other way.

She figures it is only fitting for her to know _what_ binds her, exactly.

So she lets her eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, as her bones and her skin have grown accustomed to the cold, as her heart had grown accustomed to the emptiness before she filled it again with rage. She watches the rocks, jagged and sharp and rough, and then she watches her son’s guts, still an angry, bloody red, the colour never fading even after all this time. She watches the snake, perched high above her husband’s head, a creature of slimy scales and bright, mocking eyes and a mouth like a wet, gaping pit that never closes. Sometimes, it slithers lazily this way and that, but it never moves too much, and never too far from its usual place – yet another prisoner, trapped deep down within the shadows.

She learns to notice the runes, to truly _see_ them: the ones that have been carved on the rocks, the ones that have been cut into the coils of Nari’s flesh and painted over the coils of the snake’s writhing scales, and scratched onto the cave’s ceiling right over its head. She learns to _read_ them – not just the shapes and the sounds, but the things that hide down beneath them, the crackling, shimmering energy and the biting, sharp gust of concentrated power, and the terrifying, relentless intent behind it all. She reads each and every rune over and over again, until she’s confident she can close her eyes and still put them together in the most correct order, that she can compose all the curses and the incantations in her head and between her teeth.

In time, she understands the way they work, their strength, their weaknesses – the way the runes themselves are bound together, one to the other. It takes her centuries, maybe even more. In the darkness, she can’t even tell the night from the day, after all.

But in the end, she gets there.

It’s not easy, and Loki is barely of any help. His throat is raw from all the quiet and the screaming, his hands are bound and swollen and limp and his eyes shut to avoid poison dripping into them, and his mind is addled with pain and madness. Sometimes he gives her some tips, when she asks, but mostly he just stays silent – and then, when he does talk, he mainly speaks of revenge, of the Worlds burning to ash and drowning in ice-cold sea-water, of armies marching right into the fire and of grand and hopeless battles, of how lovely she’d look with blood smeared all over her face. She wouldn’t look so gaunt and tired anymore, all covered in bright red, he tells her. Even Freya would envy her beauty, he lies as easily as he ever has. He’d stand on the prow of a great ship all made of the nails of the dead, and bigger than Balder’s own, commanding the largest fleet the Worlds would ever see, and she’d be right at his side, wearing a crown of bones fit for a queen, one that’d put even Frigg’s jewels to shame. Sometimes – when her mind starts slipping just like his, and when she can’t take the dark and the cold and the rage anymore, so she pretends that none of this matters, like it’s all just a bad dream – he even manages to make her laugh. She can’t help it, because he sounds just like he did when he used to court her, before their marriage and everything that followed, his voice so carefree and even sweet despite his words full of flames and knives and dust, like they’re young and he loves her and at least on this she can – almost – believe him. In the back of her mind, she knows she should probably feel ashamed for the laughter that bleeds out of her throat, but the truth is she doesn’t.

Still. Loki is the one who’s always been _good_ at magic, who’s always been so gifted when it came to words and shapes and spells. Without his guidance to rely on, Sigyn struggles. It is hard enough to focus while holding the bowl, which somehow always seems to fill too slowly and too quickly all at once. Her legs ache, her arms feel almost numb from the weight she keep in her hands, her back is hunched and pained as she mouths the words and stares determinedly at the runes. And that’s not even talking of the times when she catches her mind wandering – remembering her dead son, and wondering about her other son who’s now a wolf and alone and lost and where he might be, thinking back to the family and the man and the life she once had. She thinks of all the things Loki whispers in the dark, too, all the things that get stuck in her head until they sound right, until they sound almost pleasant. She starts answering and talking back, eventually, and then she asks to know more, and more still. Little by little, she allows herself to get lost in their weird, dark conversations – if they can even be called that – and it’s like she’s sinking in a warm, calm sea, finding solace under the waves that push at her and pull her under, letting the water soothe her and wash the pain off her body. She reminds herself that she has to concentrate, but that feeling always takes a while to wear off.

But in the end, she _does_ get there.

She thinks, she dreams, she talks, she sings. She pulls at the bindings unfolding all around her, pulls until the ties start to tear. She does it again and again, pulls still until they unravel and fall apart. She feels every rip and every cut, can place every point where the magic weakens and shifts, because by now she knows her fetters like she knows herself – better than she knows herself, perhaps.

Perhaps, she’s falling apart, too.

The snake closes its jaws shut and slips away, rousing from its stupor, without sparing even a glance to her or to his victim. The rocks stay perfectly still, not budging even an inch, but the chains the gods made of her son’s flesh slowly loosen their grip, falling quietly to the floor of the cave in a wet heap. She had thought she’d feel guilty about this, about desecrating all that remains of her son – but no, that’s not her Nari she’s watching, not her beautiful child with his bright eyes and his soft smile. She doesn’t avert her gaze. That’s just what the Aesir did to him, and what they did to his brother, and to her, and to…

Her husband rises, slow and limping and scarred, burned and wild-eyed. Finally, the bowl drops from her hands.

He tells her she’s beautiful. She stares at the smile on his ruined lips, at the dark gaze in his eyes, and then she offers him her arm to steady himself, and she says that he’s beautiful, too.

 

 

 

 


End file.
